Services

'Names honour at war dead ceremony means so much'

FOR great-grandmother Gill Phipps it was important to have her uncle honoured at Oxford’s Turning the Pages Ceremony.

The 75-year-old, who grew up in Oxford but now lives in Haydon Wick, near Swindon, was pleased the name of her uncle Thomas Henry Cooper, pictured, was read out at the last ceremony at Christ Church Cathedral in November.

The Lance Corporal from Headington, who served in the First World War with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, died in France aged 22 on March 31, 1918 – little more than seven months before the war ended. He was unmarried and did not have any children, but left behind two brothers and two sisters.

Mrs Phipps said: “My father had always told me my uncle should have his name in the book in the cathedral as I grew up. It was only recently I found out it was not. But they have now added it.

“It is important to me because I am his niece. It does mean something because I have been to the area where he was killed and have looked into our family history. I’m pleased his name is there.”

Families and representatives of the armed forces gather at the cathedral, off St Aldate’s, every other month to remember members of the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars and the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.

The next ceremony is on Saturday at the cathedral’s Military Chapel, at 11am.

Do you know any of the names on the list below being read out on Saturday? Call reporter Emma Harrison on 01865 425430:

The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
First World War 1914-1918
James Dacre Belgrave, MC
George Henry Creswell
Percy John Franklin
Henry Harrison
John Norris
Second World War 1939-1945
Kenneth Ivor Eades
Norman Johnston
Frederick Roberts
Leslie William Strange
Ernest Ward

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